Before The Trees Fell
“I’ll treat you like one if you treat me like one.” That’s what I told him. Swallowing every third word.
I was drunk, and I was in the mood to impart some wisdom.
Or at the very least, I was drunk, and I was in the mood to say some things that felt like they meant more than they actually did.
He handed me the next two-by-four. I nailed it up into the tree. We had three steps now. We had a base to work with.
“I think that’ll be good for today. Next step is the floor.” I lied to him.
I knew this tree house would never get built. I knew these were show steps.
He knew this too.
For the tree house, or rather, the tree steps would become yet another addition to the cavalcade of my abandoned endeavors.
I got down from the ladder. I tousled his hair.
I wanted to show him some affection.
I wanted to clean my hands of the sawdust.
I wanted to kill some birds.
My Carhartt overalls were covered and sap, and his were too. We were matching. We looked nothing alike, but we were matching.
The sap was sticking to my fingers, and I used the last drops of my screwdriver to wash it away.
That’s when my stupor started to fade.
“Go ahead and fix me another.” I told him, shaking my drink, listening to the ice cubes clink.
He took the glass from my hand, and I held up 3 fingers horizontally to show him the level of booze I wanted in the glass.
He walked away excited. He loved doing things for me. He loved waiting on me. And he was only eight, but he made one hell of a screwdriver.
I lay down on a pile of pine needles next to the tree, and closed my eyes.
I closed my eyes and thought about memories. Not a specific memory, but the act of remembering.
I thought about my life events—the ones that stand out more than the others.
And I wondered: Why do these ones muscle out the others to occupy the forefront of my consciousness? Like sperm racing toward an egg.
But my mind’s not fragile, it’s probably more like a coconut than an egg.
My breathing was shallow, and I felt at peace with the earth. The ground could turn to quicksand, swallow me up whole, and I’d be alright with that.
My breathing was shallow and I tried to match my breath with the earth’s.
I tried to imagine my back being raised ever so slightly every couple seconds, and that was just the earth inhaling.
I liked thinking I was connected to the earth.
I liked thinking about it because it made me feel like I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
If I breathe at the same rate of the earth then who are you to tell me I’m doing something wrong.
I breathe the earth's breath. I’m meant to be here.
I heard ice clinking and I leapt back to my feet.
He was holding a screwdriver with the faintest orange hue.
I took it out of his hands, and I looked out at our yard.
I looked out at the other trees.
We had five acres of land. We had five acres of trees.
A few years later they’d all be gone, but I didn’t know that then.
Then, I just wondered how many species we had growing there.
I thought about all the trees native to here.
I thought about maples, thought about birches, about oaks.
I thought about conifers, about buttonbushes, witch hazels.
I thought about elderberrys, swamp roses, spicebushes.
I took a sip of my screwdriver and said to him:
"So many names for the same fucking thing.”